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About Rich Copley & Copious Notes

Raised by opera-loving parents in a rock ’n’ roll world, Rich Copley has parlayed his broad interests into his career writing about arts and entertainment. Since 1998, he has covered performing arts, film and faith-based popular culture for the Lexington Herald-Leader, the daily newspaper in Lexington, Ky. It’s a pretty broad beat, but Rich delights in finding influences of the past in the present and showing fine arts fans the value of pop culture, and vice versa. ~ Copious Notes is a blog covering that broad spectrum. If you want to read about specific areas of interest, such as theater or opera, click on one of the categories to the right and you will be whisked away to all posts in that category. Also, look around the blog for links; multimedia items such as photo albums, videos, and interviews with artists; and other nuggets. Have fun, and thanks for dropping in.
The header for this blog was designed by Danny Kelly and the illustration was drawn by Camille Weber.

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July 06, 2008

Antony & Cleo: Sexy, absurd tragedy

Longtime collaborators Walter Tunis, Adam Luckey and Joe Ferrell share a light moment during rehearsal at the University of Kentucky's Guignol Theatre for SummerFest's Antony and Cleopatra, which opens Wednesday in the Arboretum. Copyrighted LexGo photo by Rich Copley.

If the words “Shakespeare history play” don’t make you think funny and sexy, SummerFest has a production that aims to change your mind.

Director Joe Ferrell sees a Bonnie and Clyde type of humor and steamy sexiness in that whacky Mediterranean couple, Antony and Cleopatra.

“All of these folks have done major roles for years, and there are so many ages and types represented here,” Ferrell says, acknowledging the all-star cast seated around the lounge area outside the Guignol Theatre in the University of Kentucky Fine Arts Building.

That ensemble includes Sidney Shaw, who played Julius Caesar and King Lear for the Lexington Shakespeare Festival; Paul Carelli, who played Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing for LSF; Eric Johnson, whose leads have included one of the Three Musketeers and Henry Drummond in Inherit the Wind; Walter Tunis, whose many turns include Macbeth and Adam Luckey, who plays leading roles like postmen deliver mail.

“There’s a great deal of comfort here, and that gives you an ability to try different things and serve Joe’s vision of the play,” Shaw says.

Tunis says that having a cast of high-caliber players, “illuminates some of the smaller roles,” and thereby illuminates the play. Ferrell cites Shaw’s role as Alexas as an example. In Shaw’s performance, he becomes a character who sees through a lot of Cleopatra’s facades.

“It’s an Alexas that I have not seen before,” Ferrell says.

One of the keys to bringing new colors to the characters is for the actors to make sure they are acting and not reciting.

“The language is so beautiful, you just want to stand there and proclaim it,” Shaw says. “But it has to be done with action and intent.”

Intent is a particular key with Antony, a character who essentially gives away a nation for one woman. Antony and Cleopatra can be a long play, running as long as four hours in some productions. For SummeFest, where two-to-two-and-a-half hours is the target time, Ferrell has had to cut quite a bit.“We decided that the focus of the audience is on the title characters,” Ferrell says. “So we stuck to telling that story.”

Therefore, Johnson and Ellie Clark, who play the title pair, have been encouraged to make their relationship very physical, driving home the point to the audience that they can’t keep their hands off each other, which sets the play’s events in motion.

That’s kind of obvious when you think about it. What may not be so apparent if you haven’t studied the script is a juxtaposition of absurdity and tragedy. Ferrell likens that to a scene in Bonnie and Clyde where a getaway driver struggles to park a car while the title couple engages in what becomes a bloody bank robbery.

In Antony and Cleopatra, he sees the same humor in the couple’s death scenes, where Antony’s ineptitude has him bleeding to death for quite a while and where a servant brings Cleopatra asps to do her in saying, “Enjoy the worm.”

Tunis observes, “There hasn’t been a night of rehearsal we haven’t cracked up.”

In it's third edition, Questapalooza attracted 6,500 people to Quest Community Church in Lexington, Ky., on Aug. 31, 2008. The music lineup was Kirk Franklin, Kutless and needtobreathe. In addition to the tunes, festival goers enjoyed carnival attractions, contests, heard a sermon and witnessed baptisms.

The 2008 Ichthus Festival was a roller coaster ride. The week started with the first project by Ichthus Ministries' environmental initiative: ECOS (Earth Commission, Operation Simplify). Then there was the severe thunderstorm June 9 that leveled 14 out of 19 tents at the festival site, with only two days left to open. And it did open, earlier than ever with a Thursday morning battle of the bands. That was followed by one of the hottest Ichthus days ever, and we aren't just talking about Skillet's set the night of June 12. The next day was Friday the 13th, and it turned out to be unlucky for the fest, with thunderstorms scuttling the evening lineup. But as it often has, Ichthus rallied with a fun and worshipful Saturday. The Herald-Leader crew was out there all week. Here's our photo album.

May 19 to 29, 2008, the University of Kentucky Wind Ensemble is taking a trip to China, where it is scheduled to play six concerts and visit seven cities. The tour finds China eagerly anticipating the 2008 Summer Olympics while also mourning the loss of tens of thousands of its citizens to a devastating earthquake on May 12. This photo album begins with images taken by the Herald-Leader's Whitney Waters at event's leading up to the ensemble's departure.

Actors Guild of Lexington's early spring production is Tom Stoppard's brainy drama, Arcadia. The show is a mystery over several centuries involving math, science and literature. Here's a look at some images from the show, which runs through April 6 at the Downtown Arts Center, by Herald-Leader photographer Charles Bertram. The photos are copyrighted by the Herald-Leader.

After years of going to -- excuse us while we clear our throats -- Louisville, Winter Jam finally came to Kentucky's true big house, Rupp Arena, March 6, 2008. That gave Lexington a heaping helping of MercyMe, BarlowGirl and Skillet, as well as others. This is a little record of the event.

The University of Kentucky Opera Theatre is presenting its production of Engelbert Humperdinck's "Hansel and Gretel" through March 8, 2008 at the Lexington Opera House. To give more students a shot at the stage, and for the sake of the singers' voices, two casts were fielded for this production. University of Kentucky photographer Tim Collins shot both casts. Here's a selection of those images.

Lexington Native Amber Rhodes is a budding country star, shopping a hit independent release around the country, hoping to land a recording contract with a major label. To take a peek into the life of an aspiring country star, and to see how much work it is, I went down to Nashville to spend a day with Amber, as she works to get her name out there. Here are some pictures from that trip. All photos are copyrighted by the Lexington Herald-Leader.

Between June 21 and Aug. 2, eight new plays or musicals opened in the immediate Lexington area. That was an extraordinary number of shows for a summer in the Bluegrass State. Here, we offer a photo album from behind the scenes and on stage.

On April 29, 2007, Lexington native Laura Bell Bundy realized her dream of creating a role in a Broadway musical when she took the stage of New York's Palace Theatre playing Elle Woods in 'Legally Blonde.' It's a goal she'd been working toward since age 10, when she played monstrous child star Tina Denmark in the Off Broadway hit 'Ruthless.' Her 'Legally Blonde' performance earned Bundy a Tony Award nomination for best leading actress in a musical. Over the years, Herald-Leader photographers have chronicled Bundy's career. These are some of their best shots, along with a few other photos.

Stephanie Pistello graduated from Lafayette High School and Transylvania University. She went to New York to pursue an acting career, but returned in August 2006 with her New Mummer Group to present Tennessee Williams' "Candles to the Sun" at Actors Theatre of Louisville.

Since 1999, the Herald-Leader has previewed the Lexington Shakespeare Festival with profiles and environmental portraits of the actors or directors involved in each show. This is a gallery of those fantastic images.